Three Plantation, Fla., police officers were responding to noise complaints at a house where a spring break party was being held Saturday evening when shots rang out from inside the home.
“The shooting was inside the house, and as soon as gunshots went off, people came pouring out of the house,” Detective Philip Toman told the Sun-Sentinel. “It was chaotic.”
Plantation police told the newspaper that some 400 people were in the five-bedroom, two-story house when the shooting began. Once cops entered the home, they found Serge Pierre Dumas, 28, dead.
Shamar Byfield, 21; Ashley Adamson, 16; and Sophia Hernandez, 18, were injured in the shooting, but their conditions were not available, the Sun-Sentinel reports.
The father of Tahmya Phillips, 17, who was also injured in the shooting, told the newspaper that she was hit in the legs and hip and was in stable condition.
Police noted that because so many people were inside the home during the shooting—most of whom fled once the shooting began—they had little time to stop partygoers as they ran from the house.
“We didn’t know who the shooter was,” Toman told the Sun-Sentinel, “and the officers were doing their best to pat people down, see that their hands were visible.”
One of Dumas’ friends, Davon Carter, 25, told the newspaper that he was with him at the time of the shooting. Carter said that he and Dumas were walking through the house on their way to get some air when “five or six” shots were fired.
“I watched my best friend die,” Carter told the Sun-Sentinel. Carter said that before the shooting, there were no fights or arguments at the party.
Aisha Balkich, 23, the mother of Dumas’ 15-month-old son, Darian, told the newspaper that Dumas was a rapper who performed under the name Illy-Illz.
“He was the greatest up-and-coming artist that the world will never see,” she said.
Toman told the Sun-Sentinel that at this point police don't have any suspects and that partygoers are not being very cooperative.
“Not one person can tell us who shot that gun,” Toman said. “But as far I am concerned, someone in that room knows who [the] shooter is, and they need to come forward.”
Read more at the Sun-Sentinel.